


Blood of the innocents

by DanzaNelFuoco



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abortion, What-If, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 13:33:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18283310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanzaNelFuoco/pseuds/DanzaNelFuoco
Summary: I'm a survivor, she tells herself, like that could justify everything.I did what I had to do.But in the darkness she can still see his eyes, moments before his death, watching her like she's the last thing he wants to see. And that's it, she is the last thing he saw, as crimson blood flew between her fingers, hands clenched around the hilt of a dagger.





	Blood of the innocents

**Author's Note:**

> COW-T #9: Rosso (Red)

There are nights when she lies awake in bed, listening to his husband breathing rhythmically next to her, completely untroubled.

Those are the nights when she stares in the darkness and sees the life draining from his eyes and everything’s red.

_I'm a survivor_ , she tells herself, like that could justify everything. _I did what I had to do._

But in the darkness she can still see his eyes, moments before his death, watching her like she's the last thing he wants to see. And that's it, she _is_ the last thing he saw, as crimson blood flew between her fingers, hands clenched around the hilt of a dagger.

Gale turns in his sleep, snoring, but she doesn't care.

Lately, she doesn't care about anything. She can't afford to care, she would turn insane.

Rose - another flower, why is it always a flower? -was the last one Katniss cared about, the one she truly started believing she could do it. She was just fourteen and she resisted until the final eight, until there were only five left - it had never happened before her, and Katniss doubts it will ever happen again. The other tribute from District 12, the one Haymitch tried to train between a drink and a glass of liquor, died the first day, aiming to the Cornucopia, completely ignoring his advice, but her... She had the instinct of a survivor. It wasn't enough.

_It was never enough._

Katniss watched as the boy from District 1 chocked her to death, while she uselessly fought tooth and nails against him. She became another one in the line of the countless tribute Katniss sent to die. A nameless one to the crowds, her face already forgotten in the mind of Capitol City’s dandies. But her family grieved her, crying and wailing, and Katniss couldn’t forget.

It was like she had killed her. It was like she was personally killing every tribute the Capital gave her to train, stabbing them in their chest as she did with Peeta, twenty years ago, the red blood drenching her hands every single time, every single boy or girl dying.

It was no longer just District 12, it was every single child from every District - the ones dying bravely, with a smile on their face, bringing honor to their District paining her more than the scared kids that looked at her as she could really help them.

She wonders what she could have done differently. What if, what if, what if, crowding her mind, overwhelming her under the pressure of all what could have been, until she can't stand it anymore and presses the palms of his hands against her eyes ‘till everything she sees is a painted-red black.

Everything is red in her life, the same shade of red as Peeta’s blood.

_I am a survivor._ She reminds herself. But sometimes she thinks it would have been better if she had stabbed herself, instead of accepting the knife from Peeta's hand.

She stares in the darkness and she feels like the darkness is brighter than her.

She closes her eyes, forcing herself to sleep. She thinks of an excuse she could use with Gale for going in the woods tomorrow morning - not a real lie, Gale knows what she thinks about that and maybe he suspects this is not the first time, but he doesn't need to know exactly when this happens -and she thinks about the herbs she'll have collect. They are red too, the flowers she’ll have to find. Vermillion as spilled blood, scarlet as death, crimson as a crime.

She sighs. Another death. Other blood on her hands.

But she doesn't care.

She is not bringing a baby in this world.


End file.
